The Beaver Creek occurrence is situated approximately 400 metres east of Highway 3A, 2 kilometres north of Ross Spur and 14 kilometres west of Salmo.
The area is underlain by argillite, greywacke, sandstone and minor limestone lenses and basaltic flows of the Lower Jurassic Archibald Formation, Rossland Group. Granodiorite of the Middle to Lower Jurassic Nelson Intrusion occupies most of the area to the north of the occurrence. A plug or sill of dioritic augite porphyry of the Rossland Group also intrudes the strata.
The area around the old workings consists of a series of argillite and tuffaceous wackes, coarse volcanic fragmentals and carbonate breccias intruded by a rhyodacite feldspar porphyry body. Massive, finely laminated black argillites unconformably overlie locally tuffaceous wackes containing beds of grey, partially recrystallized limestone. The carbonate breccias consist of intermediate and rhyolitic volcanics in a coarsely crystalline matrix of grey and black calcite. Very fine-grained disseminated pyrite is contained within the calcite matrix. In the volcanic fragmental unit, intermediate felsic volcanics reside within a medium-grained rhyolitic matrix that is poorly lithified with irregular pods of silicification. Very fine-grained pyrite occurs throughout. The porphyritic intrusive body sits as a large plug extending westward toward the highway with a contact zone of rusty hornfels extending up to 25 metres into the surrounding rock.
Mineralization is restricted to a north-trending zone of gossanous hornfels in argillite and wacke and recrystallized limestone, an area approximately 60 by 500 metres along the contact with the dioritic feldspar porphyry. Pyrite and pyrrhotite occur throughout the gossanous zone as disseminations or seams. Minor galena, sphalerite and rare chalcopyrite accompany pyrite in siliceous southeast-trending small shears containing discontinuous lenses of quartz up to 0.5 metre wide and no more than 10 metres in length. Several such siliceous zones occur. The limestone is locally altered to weak garnet-epidote-calcite skarn. Some free gold has been observed in the area. Gold and silver mineralization is restricted to narrow quartz veins composed of fine-grained white quartz with varying quantities of pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite. The veins are generally subvertical and strike either northeast or northwest.
The old adit (of unknown age but prior to 1985) was dug entirely within the feldspar porphyry plug.
The Beaver Creek property was originally staked in 1895 by J. Caron and bonded to the Beaver Creek Mines Syndicate in 1924. That year, a cabin and trails were constructed and a drill compressor was installed. In 1925, the existing workings consisted of a 9-metre shaft and numerous trenches.
The old Beaver Creek prospect has a similar description to that of the 1980s Relay property, indicating these two deposits are likely the same. The Reliance past producer, owned by W. Johnson of Ross Spur and G.H. Grimwood of Nelson and situated to the west of the Beaver Creek showing, has no description but is recorded as having 55 tonnes of production in 1940 and 1941, with recovery totalling 560 grams of gold and 4976 grams of silver (BC Metal, MM01059).
Two drillholes noted on the property during the 1983 exploration program are believed to have been completed in 1929 by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company on their Harold and Winnie claims.
S. Paszty acquired the Rely claims in 1979 and, the following year, completed a program of prospecting and magnetic surveying on the property. Paszty optioned the parcel to Riocanex (later known as Rio Algom Exploration Incorporated) in 1983. Rio Algom completed an exploration program of mapping and soil geochemistry. In 1985, Lancana Mining Corporation optioned the property from S. Paszty. Lancana Mining cleaned out two existing trenches, dug five new trenches for a total of 350 metres and collected 85 rock samples from the trenches. A 0.5-square kilometre area around the old workings was mapped and sampled and the existing adit was cleaned out and mapped. In total, 62 samples were collected from the map area.
In 2010, claim owner Robert Bourdon established five sample lines and collected 202 B-horizon soil samples. The following year, an additional 44 samples were collected to follow up on anomalous results from the 2010 sampling program.
A composite sample collected in 1924 returned 14 grams per tonne gold, 150.9 grams per tonne silver, 1.8 per cent lead and 3.2 per cent zinc (Minister of Mines Annual Report, 1925, page 250).
One sample that was reported as a 3-metre grab sample assayed 130 grams per tonne silver, 13 grams per tonne gold, 0.01 per cent copper, 0.27 lead and 0.03 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 12762).
The best samples from the 1985 exploration program came from the Main Trench. Sample JRR-050 returned 13.7 grams per tonne gold and 46.3 grams per tonne silver, sample JRR-046 returned 10.6 grams per tonne gold and 131.3 grams per tonne silver and sample JRR-032 returned 8.16 grams per tonne gold and 100.8 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 14043, page 18).
